Setting up wireless

oXiKoTToN · 05-28-2008, 01:24 PM

I finally got my wireless usb card installed but im having troubles setting it up. i thought it was the dhcpcd not working but after double checking it seems like its not saving my connection setting i put in.

Code:

# ifconfig wlan0 down
# iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
# iwconfig wlan0 essid 2WIRE460
# iwconfig wlan0 ap 00:1a:c4:5f:37:11
# iwconfig wlan0 key 2991088074
# ifconfig wlan0 up
# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0       IEEE 802.11g  ESSID: off/any  Nickname: "localhost"
            Mode: Managed  Frequency: 2.462 GHz  Access Point: Not Associated
            Bit Rate=2 Mb/s  Tx-Power:22dBm
            RTS thr=2347 B  Fragment thr=2346 B
            Encryption key: 299-1088-074  Security Mode: restricted
            Power Management: off
            Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
            Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
            Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0

after restarting i relized before i touched any of the setting and just typed "iwconfig wlan0" it gave me something like this

Code:

# iwconfig wlan0
wlan0       IEEE 802.11g  ESSID: "2WIRE460"  Nickname: "localhost"
            Mode: Managed  Frequency: 2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:1a:c4:5f:37:11
            Bit Rate=2 Mb/s  Tx-Power:22dBm
            RTS thr=2347 B  Fragment thr=2346 B
            Encryption key: off
            Power Management: off
            Link Quality:0  Signal level:0  Noise level:0
            Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
            Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0

1st thing i tryed was just entering in the key and it returned back to the way it was the first time, with the essid "off/any" and the ap "Not Associated".

Does anybody know why its doing this? Im currently running Slackware 12 and useing ndiswrapper for my Dell Wireless 1450 usb adapter.

Bruce Hill · 05-29-2008, 06:37 AM

In Slackware you should setup your network in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf

Since he wrote most of the scripts, and has good HOW-TOs, I refer you
to Alien Bob's wiki. If you have an Atheros or Ralink chipset wireless NIC,
I would encourage you to use his package rather than ndiswrapper.

If you can't get connected after following his instructions, post back.

oXiKoTToN · 05-29-2008, 07:47 AM

i did that.. and its pretty much doing the same thing that it would if i typed it in myself, only the key saves the rest just goto "off/any" like above.

Alien Bob · 05-29-2008, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oXiKoTToN

# iwconfig wlan0 key 2991088074

This is a strange WEP key... it is invalid as it is above. Which could be the reason that you are unable to connect in that case. Does your router accept non-encrypted connections too? Because that is what I see in your second 'iwconfig' output.
If you want to use an 'string' based WEP key as opposed to a series of hexadecimal characters, you should add "s:" to the key like this:

Code:

# iwconfig wlan0 key "s:2991088074"

A hexadecimal WEP key has a fixed length of 26 characters.

Eric

oXiKoTToN · 05-29-2008, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

This is a strange WEP key... it is invalid as it is above. Which could be the reason that you are unable to connect in that case. Does your router accept non-encrypted connections too? Because that is what I see in your second 'iwconfig' output.
If you want to use an 'string' based WEP key as opposed to a series of hexadecimal characters, you should add "s:" to the key like this:

Code:

# iwconfig wlan0 key "s:2991088074"

A hexadecimal WEP key has a fixed length of 26 characters.

Eric

i found the problem.. the reason it couldnt connect is becuase its a WEP-Open key not restricted.. i decided to turn off the WEP to see if i could connect without it and it worked, then after not being able to connect again i tryed

Code:

# iwconfig wlan0 2991088074 open

and it worked fine.. just typed "dhcpcd wlan0" and i got a ipaddress.

thanks for all your help.